Chinese New Year

Every year I tell Ken that I'm going to make a Chinese dinner in honor of the Chinese New Year he replies with the same 4 words, "but we're not Chinese."  Yes Ken, I know, we're Korean.  Yes, he's half Korean.  He is the reason I love Korean food.

This year I told him that we were having Korean in order to celebrate Seollal, the Korean lunar new year.  Seollal is the first day of the Korean Lunar Calendar.  It falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice.  This day is about family and ancestors.  It's one of the most important Korean holidays.

2014 is the year of the Horse.  According to the Official Korea Tourism Organization,

"Every year is represented by one of the 12 zodiac signs, which take the form of animals known as Sibijisin. These signs change with every new year and rotate over a 12 year cycle. For a fun activity at the beginning of each year, people, especially elders, analyze the relationship between their birth year zodiac sign and the new year's sign to find out their fortune. 

The year 2014 is referred to as "Gaponyeon" or "The Year of the Horse." The horse is the seventh in the group of twelve guardian animal deities collectively known as the Sibijisin, which literally means "twelve (sibi) gods of the earth (jisin)." People born in the year of the horse are said to be open-minded and have a cheerful disposition with a good sense of humor. They are likely to achieve success in any activities they undertake. However, they can be somewhat self-centered and must beware of trifling away money on pleasures."

For more information on the Sibijisin check out the links at the bottom of the post.


So onto dinner.  I pulled out my tried and true Korean cookbook.  The Complete Book of Korean Cooking by Young Jin Song.  I love this book.  I have used it too many times to count to make myself many Korean meals.  {Buy it HERE}  I decided that I wanted my favorite noodle dish, Japchae,  and fried zucchini (hobakjeon.)  Unfortunately Japchae was the 1 recipe that is NOT included in the book.  So, I turned to the internet and found a recipe on Korean Bapsang.  Get the recipe HERE for the Japchae and the recipe for the fried zucchini HERE.

Japchae

HobakJeon

The most time consuming part of all of these dishes was the chopping.  I was in the kitchen for nearly an hour chopping, slicing and dicing.  After all that is done the meal comes together quickly

Everything turned out delicious.  Yet, it all paled in comparison to my mother-in-law's cooking.  Me making Korean dishes is alot like when I make a recipe of my mother's.  It doesn't have exactly the same flavor as my mother's or my mother-in-laws.  Maybe I'm lacking the same love that they made it with?  Ken raved about it to his mom, who was very impressed.

Below are some links about the Lunar New Year celebration in Korea.  Did you make anything interesting for the Lunar New Year?

KoreanTourism.org: Seollal (Lunar New Year) Celebrations in Korea

KoreanTourism.org: Sibijisin Story

I'm BACK!

My crazy weeks are done and I can focus again on y'all!  Honestly, nothing exciting has happened over the past few weeks.  This post might be a bit long due to the fact that I have a ton of recipes to share. 

Let's start with the Superbowl.  I never have enough friends to have a party but I love the idea of Superbowl party food.  So, I did a themed dinner that night.  It was delicious.  I did Spinach artichoke dip, homemade tortilla chips, cauliflower buffalo bites, and portabello pizzas.  The recipes for the dip and the buffalo bites are located below the picture. 

SkinnyTaste: Buffalo Cauliflower
SkinnyTaste: Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Oh and I did some angel food cake cupcakes with team colored sugar on top.

Next up, the Korean New Year, Seollal.  I made Bibimbap and chamchi-jeon (Korean tuna cakes)  except I did them with crab because I was in a crabby mood.  I didn't get a picture of any of it.  It was actually gone too quick. 

ZenKimchi Chamchi-Jeon

Oh and I just have to show you this!  My father and mother in law sent this to Sunny last week. 

 
Her own hanbok!  Isn't she simply adorable???  

Fast forward a few days to Valentine's Day.  To Ken and I this day has become just a day for the kids.  And it's honestly all about the candy.  We exchange cards and he will buy my flowers but, it's nothing major.  This year I gave him a bag of Snickers with a reason why I love him for every piece in it.  He gave me a bag of Valentine's Day 3 Musketeers.  I think I've talked about 3 Musketeers before.  Each piece has under 1 gram of fat so, I can still have chocolate without causing myself pain. This year he bought me a bag of Strawberry Dark Chocolate ones.  They are amazing.  I have dubbed them the "poor man's Russel Stover" because they taste so close to the high end strawberry cream chocolates.   I eat one a night.  I would highly recommend them.  7 pieces has 6 grams of fat and 180 calories.  That means 1 has 0.86 grams of fat and 25.8 calories.  Not too bad right?  Healthiest candy I've found so far.

Florida kills me sometimes.  The other morning I woke up and it was 34 degrees outside.  34!!  I decided it was the type of day that called for chili.  Well, by 2 pm it was around 65 degrees.  Definitely not typical chili weather.  But, despite that, I still made it.  I was amazed at how it turned out.  It was really good awesome!  I took a few big risks with some of the ingredients.  Kaylee and Mantha aren't normally fond of sweet potatoes (that's why there's only 1/2 of one in the recipe).  If I had been making it for me I would have added a whole one.  The soy crumbles aren't normally liked by non-vegetarians.  But, even Ken raved about it.  Note about the Crumbles.  If you are seriously on a no-fat diet then you need to buy the BOCA soy crumbles.  They are the only ones that have 0g of fat.  I picked up a different brand and didn't pay attention so that is why there is extra fat in the recipe 

Veggie Overload Chili
Serves 10 calories 136 fat 1.09 grams fiber 6 grams protein 12.2 grams

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cup chili powder
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
2 bay leaves
12 oz Ground Crumbles Meatless (1 bag)
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
12 oz dark beer
.25 sweet potato, cubed
1 cup corn (fresh, frozen or canned)
16 oz mushrooms, quartered
42 oz Diced Tomatoes 
16 oz tomato sauce 

Directions

1. Saute onions, sweet potato and garlic until golden.
2. Add in the spices and cook for another 2 minutes
3. Stir in tomato paste and meatless crumbles
4. Next put in chocolate, beer,tomato sauce and tomatoes bring to a boil then reduced and simmer for 30 minutes
5. After 30 minutes add the corn, and mushrooms.
6.  Bring back to a boil and simmer for another 15 minutes

 I have a post in the works about regaining motivation.  I kist my motivation a few weeks ago while I wasn't blogging (hmmmm, I wonder if there's a connection?  I hadn't thought of it before now)  I bought myself a new pair of pants for the gym in order to get myself pumped.  

I bought them at Target for $20.  They are made by Champion and they are AH-MA-ZING.  When I worked out in my other capris I kept having to adjust them every 10 minutes.  The only time I had to adjust these was when I got out of the car and when I accidentally pushed them up.  I have one problem with them though.  They are made of 84% polyester and 16% spandex.  I'm very paranoid about them getting snagged.  

That's my February in a very big nutshell.  How has your month been?

Picture Post

These are some various photos that I've wanted to post but really didn't have any place to put them.  

Kimchi Stew!!

For those of you who haven't heard of kimchi " is a traditional fermented Korean dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings"  (Wikipedia)  The most common is made with cabbage but, I've also had it with diakon radish (my favorite), cucumber, green onions, and bean sprouts.  I love all of them.  Mr. Amazing is half Korean and his mom spoils me with all the yummy Korean food whenever we go visit them in Tacoma.  I miss Korean food.  We don't have a Korean grocery less than 45 minutes away
I adapted the recipe from Maangchi.  Click here for the original recipe.

Kimchi Stew
* 5 cups chopped kimchi
* 1 Tbsp sugar
* 1 tsp hot pepper flakes (I used red pepper flakes because we were all out of the Korean kind)
* 1 Tbsp hot pepper paste (I love this stuff)
* 1 onion, sliced
* 5 cups water 

1)  Put the chopped kimchi and juice in a pot
2)  Add the onions, sugar, hot pepper flakes, and hot pepper paste
3)  Add water
4)  Put lid on and boil for 15 minutes on high heat and then another 20 minutes on medium heat

Me and the girls at the beach

Building an "island"

 Did you know that building a sand castle burns about 100 calories an hour?

Me the night we got to the campground.  I had been stuck in the car and in the house all day and felt I had to get some sort of burn.  I did step-ups using the bench and I did incline pushups.  I also ran sprints from the front and back of the spot.  

I hate the gym so I made this.  I also feel like unless you lift weights or need special accommodations then you don't need a gym.  A bike, some stairs and running shoes is all you need.